presidential poll. president obama, 50%. mitt romney, 47%. how influential is it in the media chamber? guest: the campaigns are obsessing on the polls. the import numbers of the numbers in eight or nine key states. here's my beef about the coverage. we want to know who will win. it seeps into all the coverage when one candidate is down. everything he says is seen as a semi desperate attempt to close the gap. i think the coverage has become so poll-driven. it would be different if brought barack obama were down by five points. guest: i did not think we do a good job of getting into the middle of the country and talking to those folks. .ou're sitting in a studio a poll comes across and now you have something that's right in front of you that you can talk about. because of budget cuts, you are not seeing the expense -- people are not spending the money to get people talking to people. guest: there are a relative handful of people that still go knocking on doors. you always learn something when you talk to voters. i think there should be more of